And I knowin’ we wuz three to one and if he wuz leadin’ us off into a trap to git Josiah’s money we could overpower him, I wunked for Josiah to keep still, but he wouldn’t, but kep’ on mutterin’ whilst the man led us down two more flights, and into some quite good rooms, only if you’ll believe it there wuz a tree growin’ right up through our room as big as Josiah’s waist.

And that made Josiah as mad as a hen agin, and he told the man, “We’ve been imposed upon ever since we entered this house.  You knew we lived on the outskirts of Jonesville, and you’ve took liberties with us that you wouldn’t if we had come from the heart of the village.  But I’ll let you know we’re knowed and respected, and Jonesville will resent it to think you’ve put us in with trees, tryin’ to make out we’re green, I spoze.”

But the man wuz up two flights of stairs by this time.  And I quelled Josiah down by sayin’ we would try to make the best on’t.  The hotel is built on a side hill, that’s why we had to come down stairs; there are four stories more in the back than in front, and they wouldn’t let ’em cut down all the trees so they had to build right round ’em.

But I ruther enjoyed it, and hung my mantilly up on it, there wuz some nails that somebody had left in it, and the tabs hung down noble.  And as I told Josiah, “Trees are kinder sociable things anyway.”

“Sociable!” he groaned.  “We don’t need trees in order to be sociable.”  And sure enough, on both sides on us wuz goin’ on private conversations that we could hear every word on.  It wuz a very friendly place.

Well, I het up my little alcohol lamp and made a cup of tea and we had lots left in our lunch basket.  So I called Blandina, her room wuz only jest a little ways from ourn, and we had a good lunch and felt recooperated.

We slep’ as well as we could considerin’ the size and hardness of the mattress and pillows, and the confidences that wuz bein’ poured into us onbeknown from both sides.

The house is built dretful shammy.  Why I hearn that a man weighin’ most three hundred took a room there, and comin’ in one evenin’ dretful tired from the day’s tramp on the Fair ground leaned up heavy aginst the wall to pull off his boots, and broke right through into the next room.

And that room wuz occupied by a young married couple.  You know it wuz dretful fashionable to marry and go to St. Louis on your tower.  So they’d follered Fashion and the star of Love and wuz havin’ a first rate time.

They had been there several days, and this evenin’, he thinkin’ his eyes of her, and feelin’ very sentimental as wuz nateral, wuz readin’ poetry to her, she settin’ the picture of happiness and contentment with her feet on a foot-stool, her pretty hands clasped in her lap, and her eyes lookin’ up adorin’ly into hisen as he read: 

“Oh, beautious love, sweet realm of joy,
No wild alarm shall ere thy sweet calm break.”